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MiFID II’s Reference Data Problems Drag On

MiFID II’s Reference Data Problems Drag On

Posted on Tue, Jun 12, 2018 @ 1:55

By Jamie Hyman
June 11, 2018, Waters Technology

In the months leading up to the compliance deadline for the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) at the start of this year, an oft-repeated sentiment was that January 3 would be a starting point, not a finish line. MiFID is a massive, sweeping piece of regulation that would not merely regulate, but rather reform how the markets operate, and so a bumpy first few weeks or months were expected — so much so that regulators repeatedly made it clear that they would take a measured approach as long as firms made a good-faith effort to comply.

In the initial days of the new regime, the problems consisted mostly of technical troubles with reporting, with some regulators and Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARMs) experiencing shutdowns. Now, nearly six months post-implementation, most of those early, post-go-live wrinkles have been ironed out, though firms, vendors, and data experts report that they continue to deal with some stubborn data problems — primarily around instrument reference data and identifying execution venues.